UC-Davis promotes 'anti-racism syllabus' to move from 'allyship to action'
The syllabus provides links to past and future anti-racism events, in addition to suggesting several classes that students can take to educate themselves on racism.
UC-Davis’s diversity office published a 17-page “anti-racism syllabus” for students and faculty.
The University of California-Davis Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion released an “anti-racism syllabus” to help students understand alleged bias, racism, and structural inequalities.
Vice-Chancellor of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Renetta Tull said that the syllabus allows the school to be “in the process of moving from isolated allyship to action.” The syllabus explains that the university community responded to the death of George Floyd with “a period of acknowledgment, mourning, reflection, and reckoning.” The syllabus exists to point students and other UC-Davis community members toward links to events that occurred over the summer, as well as to promote upcoming lectures and initiatives.
One of the first links in the syllabus is a webpage to Black-owned booksellers, through which readers can purchase the bestselling White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. The UC-Davis Graduate School of Management Faculty Book Club read the book over the summer.
Another opportunity referenced by the syllabus is a four-part training for faculty, which will help participants “apply cultural humility to empower their teaching, identify the key elements of curricular content that contribute to the cultural microaggressions that impede learning and develop self-management and communications skills to navigate difficult interactions that impact cultural safety.”
Another link directs students toward the Feminist Research Institute’s “Asking Different Questions” seminar, which “invites participants to consider how white supremacy persists in our research culture.”
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At the end of the syllabus is a list of additional resources.
Among them are invitations to “Racial Healing Circles,” consultations through the Feminist Research Institute available for a small fee, and a list of racial equity terms.
The syllabus also named nearly three dozen courses that students could take in order to learn about race relations, from “Ethnicity, Culture, & the Self” to “Women, Race, & Sexuality in Postcolonial Cinema.”
Campus Reform reached out to UC-Davis for comment and will update this article accordingly.
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